Tories to slash 'Labour's jobs tax' IN HALF to boost youth employment - as Kemi Badenoch warns 'the world is getting worse for young people'

Taxes on employing young people are to be halved under Tory plans to tackle the youth jobs crisis. Kemi Badenoch is set to unveil a new ‘rescue package for young people’ on Wednesday aimed at reversing the slide in entry level jobs under Labour. The package will include a pledge to halve the National Insurance contributions paid by firms employing workers aged under 25. The plan will cost £2.3 billion and senior Tories believe it could trigger a hiring boom for young people. It will be accompanied by a major push to get young people off benefits, including barring them from going straight on the dole from school and preventing people with mild mental health issues from claiming sickness payments. Mrs Badenoch said a dose of ‘tough love’ was needed to reverse a situation which has left more than a million young people not earning or learning. But she said employers also need encouragement to take on young people after being battered by higher taxes and new regulations in Labour’s first two years. The Tory leader told the BBC that ‘the world is getting worse for young people’. ‘What we have seen is youth unemployment skyrocket,’ she said. ‘We've seen an increase since Labour came into office of 174,000. It's now 750,000 young people who are unemployed. We've got to fix that. There's a graduate recruitment crisis, and if young people don't get a job early, that impacts their lifetime earnings. So I'm really focusing this on them.’ Kemi Badenoch pledged to unpick tax hikes blamed for fuelling youth unemployment Employers have blamed a triple whammy of changes under Labour for making it less attractive to employ young people. These include big hikes in the youth minimum wage, a wave of new employment rights and increases in National Insurance. Rachel Reeves levied a £25 billion increase in employers’ NI in 2024, raising it from 13.8 per cent to 15. She also almost halved the threshold for paying employers’ NI to just £5,000, hitting young and part-time workers hardest. Under the new Tory plans, employer NI for workers aged 21 to 24 will be halved to just 7.5 per cent. The would allow businesses to keep an average of £1,545 for every young worker, making them more attractive to employ. A firm employing ten young graduates on £30,000 would keep £18,750 a year. The move will cost £2.3 billion a year and will be funded by cuts from existing spending as part of a new ‘Conservative Savings Plan’ to be published on Wednesday. It will not cover workers who earn more than the £50,270 threshold for paying 40p tax. Workers aged 21 and under already attract a zero rate of employers NI under changes introduced by the last government. Shadow chancellor Andrew Griffith said: ‘Labour are destroying the future of our young people. Their Jobs Tax, employment red tape and minimum wage hikes have seen an explosion in the cost of employing a young worker. We will fix that. ‘We will slash the tax on youth jobs in half to give young people the opportunities they deserve.’ Mrs Badenoch said she would like to reverse Labour’s NI hike in its entirety, but said it was not currently affordable. ‘If I could afford to cut it for everybody, I promise you that I would,’ she said. ‘But young people have a much worse problem than everybody else.’ The Tory leader is expected to focus heavily on the need to cut Britain’s bloated benefits bill when she addresses the conservative Party conference in Birmingham tomorrow. Speaking on Tuesday, she told GB News: ‘We are the fiscally responsible party. Because if we run out of money, none of us are going to have anything. We need to get people off welfare and into work. ‘The best welfare is a well-paying job. That means a lot of tough love.’ The Tory leader is also expected to unveil plans to cut inheritance tax, which she has previously described as ‘immoral’. Options include cutting the 40p headline rate or raising the threshold at which it kicks in. Mrs Badenoch committed again to retaining the pension triple lock. But she declined to say whether a future Conservative government would reverse changes planned by Andy Burnham. ‘I have said that we are keeping this policy, but if they take that money and they spend it on something that we can’t get it back from, then it would be difficult for me,’ she said.